Designed by BIG and COWI, LEGO house expresses the building process as pure fun

Core77 isn't an architecture blog by nature, but certain structures do catch our eye. So is the case with LEGO house, a 21,500+ sq ft building inspired by—you guessed it—everything LEGO. The center resides in Billund, Denmark and was was designed in partnership by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and COWI.

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

From the outside, the building is inconspicuously modern. However—exactly like a mullet hairstyle—it's all business in the front and party on the roof:

Overhead view. Image Credit: Kim Christensen

Rooftop play areas. Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Inside, the first and second floors feature four public play zones color coded to represent a different aspect of a child's learning development—red is creative, yellow is emotional, green is social and blue is cognitive. In these spaces, guests of all ages are welcome to an immersive experience and encouraged to interact with other builders from around the world.

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

"LEGO house is a literal manifestation of the infinite possibilities of the LEGO brick. Through systematic creativity, children of all ages are empowered with the tools to create their own worlds and to inhabit them through play. At its finest—that is what architecture—and LEGO play —is all about: enabling people to imagine new worlds that are more exciting and expressive than the status quo, and to provide them with the skills to make them reality. This is what children do every day with LEGO bricks—and this is what we have done today at LEGO House with actual bricks, taking Billund a step closer towards becoming the Capital for Children." —Bjarke Ingels, Founding Partner, BIG.

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

The building also includes the Masterpiece Gallery, which displays impressive fan creations that play tribute to LEGO's diverse community of builders.

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Inside The Vault, visitors are treated to a glance at the first edition of almost every LEGO set ever manufactured, which includes a new replica of the LEGO house itself.

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Image Credit: Iwan Baan

Yes, this building is straight up eye candy, but its mission to bring a community of builders together under one roof makes it so much more.

Also, something I learned from this is that AFoL is the acronym for Adult Fans of LEGO. If you're an AFoL, we'd love to see the coolest thing you've built so far in the comments section.

The latest design news, jobs & events. Straight to you every other week.

Join over 300,000 designers who stay up-to-date with the Core77 newsletter...

They sued her Tudor

In the tony Toronto suburb of Forest Hill, a couple whose last name starts with "C" have a handsome, multimillion-dollar home designed in the Tudor style. We tracked it down on Google Street View, and found much of the house obscured: About 800 meters away, on a different street, a

Magna Carta Holy Shit

Good news, folks: Jay Z and Beyoncé, who were previously renting a Malibu house (monthly rent: $400,000 per month) have finally scraped up enough cash to become L.A. homeowners! They've snagged a nice little 30,000-square-foot house in Bel Air for a reported $90 million. Images are scarce as the architect

The Algae Dome provides fresh air and protein, and asks for little in return

Imagine living millennia ago, in a time when you've never seen a horse. Everywhere you and your tribe go is by walking. Then one of you discovers horses and figures out how to ride one. Now you've discovered the perfect sustainable transportation system. Horses eat grass, which is free. That

…and why it was a terrible idea

Here's a great example of an architect becoming enamored of a new, flashy concept while failing to consider real-world behaviors. In 1881, architect William H. Brown patented the following design: That's the plan and elevation views of a rotating jail. The circle contains eight pie-shaped jail cells and there's only